Analysis: January NPD Game Sales

With January 2009 done and gone, it's time to look at NPD sales data! Put your thinking caps on and ride along with me as I examine console software sales for January 2009.

Here are the top three games:

1. Wii Fit (Wii) - 777,000

2. Wii Play (Wii) - 415,000

3. Mario Kart (Wii) - 292,000

The top three games show an easy first-party domination session by Nintendo. New Wii owners, apparently eager to drop some pounds and snag an extra Wiimote, continue to pour money into Big N's coffers. If you ever doubted that console sales turn into software sales, here's more evidence.

In a repeat of December's numbers, Guitar Hero World Tour for the Wii is the only third-party title to crack the top ten for the platform. DS software continues to sell well, but the top titles are selling far less than the amount of hardware units being moved. This suggests that new DS purchasers are either buying them to stare blankly at them or there are a very large number of titles being sold, with New Super Mario Bros. and Mario Kart DS being the two most popular.

Electronic Arts hits a triple-play on the Xbox 360 with Left 4 Dead, Skate 2, and Lord of the Rings: Conquest. Surprisingly, Left 4 Dead outsold Call of Duty: World at War on the Xbox 360. This is likely due to very positive word of mouth. That, or everyone that was going to buy World at War, already did.

Sony, missing any titles in the top ten, could be in a lot of trouble. Hopefully Killzone 2 will turn this around, but it's only available for a few days next month. Keep that in mind, as we may not see its true sales numbers until the March NPD data, out in early April. In December, CoD: World at War sold a respectable 533,000 copies on the PS3.

In the end, there were only a few major releases in January. Sales should be higher with this month's releases of Killzone 2 and Street Fighter IV.

Keep it civil, folks. Let's have an intelligent discussion about these numbers and not a generic flame war.